I have unistalled and reinstalled the Ubuntu Software Center as per info I found in a similar thread and I got the same response about line 91 or something like that.

I just tried to upload a screen shot but since I'm new it won't allow me to. I also can not figure out how to cut and paste anything so I have to hand type what the error screen says, both when I attempt to open the software center and nothing happens, when I try to enter commands into the terminal to uninstall, reinstall, whatever I get the same following:

COULD NOT INTITIALIZE THE PACKAGE INFORMATION
An unresolvable problem occured while initializing the package information
Please report t:his bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the
following error message:
'E: Malformed line 91 in source list/etc/apt/sources.list (dist parse)
E: The list of sources could not be read.,
E: The package list of status file could not be parsed or opened.

How do I report bugs? What can be done about this. I have searched and everything everyone says to do leads me back to the same line error message.

So, I don't know how to get to line 91 in the source list; to tell you what it says. Sorry, I'm really new to this. That is what I need is to find out how to get there and fix what it says. I would really like to NOT have to re partition my hard drive and start from scratch, so I'm really looking forward to getting this problem solved. I need to be able to install new software.

Can you add the content of your /etc/apt/sources.list between lines 67 and 69???
–
Bruno PereiraJun 17 '12 at 17:10

1

Edit your question to include the output of the command cat /etc/apt/sources.list. And no you don't need to wipe out everything. It is very easy problem (from my experience)
–
Anwar ShahJun 17 '12 at 17:14

The URL, distribution and components will be different. It does not necessarily have to have 3 components.

Anything which doesn't fit this format is incorrect.

Save the file and quit the text editor. Then run this command in a Terminal window:

sudo apt-get update

Assuming there are no errors, the problem is now fixed. You should be able to run the Sofware Center.

However, while some problems with the Software Center can be solved by reinstalling the software-center package, most cannot, so it's possible your original problem will remain. If that is the case, you can post a new question to get help with it.

Typing sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list this in a terminal and hitting Enter will do the job.

Then paste the copied content in the sources.list, then save and close gedit.

Then do sudo apt-get update and you will see that the repository list is updated.

Explanation: Here we are completely replacing the content with another sources.list file with repository entry from Main Server. If you want to use your local server for sources.list see the method below.

Strange that this was not accepted!! A quick fix, comment the problematic line in /etc/apt/sources.list by adding ## as first characters in the line. Then try sudo apt-get update.
–
Noble P. AbrahamSep 12 '12 at 7:32

Maybe it wasn't accepted because the user may have other repos enabled and they would lose them if they did this. For example, most users of VirtualBox get it from Oracle's repo. Also, Oracle uses different package names in there repos than Ubuntu does in theirs. Therefore, if I installed VirtualBox with Oracle's repo and followed this guide, I would sit at the same version of VirtualBox all of the time and never get an update. Never.
–
FuzzyToothpasteJan 3 at 18:30

@FuzzyToothpaste they will not lose them if they did this. It only removes the duplicate entries. Your example scenario has nothing to do with this problem
–
Anwar ShahJan 4 at 2:36

As you can see from the error, it says that your sources.list file has a wrong entry. This wrong entry could not be parsed. This error is not related to Software Center as such but mostly to do with apt(The package manager)

The way to solve this would be to fix the malformed line 91 entry.

If you cannot understand what is wrong with line 91, please post line 91 and I will help you out

The file /etc/apt/sources.list contains the URLs of webservers and location of other sources form (e.g. cds), from which you retrieve your software and updates. It basically tells Ubuntu where to look for new Software and updates to already installed programs. The error message you got means, that somehow the file got compromised. Without knowing what the content of your file is, it is hard to know what exactly is wrong with it. So you should post the output of sudo more /etc/apt/sources.list for us to help you better.

If the file is messed up beyond repair, you can use the Ubuntu Source List Generator to generate a sources.list anew. But you should backup your old one beforehand. Also this will cause you to lose all changes you have made for your Software Sources, e.g. in Sofware Center.

The better way to fix this is letting us see whats wrong with your sources.list

Edit after you posted your sources.list:

I believe the file you posted should look like this (note the last to lines and the missing /etc/apt/sources.list in the end):

I'll try the source list generator after I backed up my files but it would really take a while. My laptop is still on HDD so it's not that quick yet. I added my source.list to the message above.
–
Odi1215Aug 1 '12 at 13:30

It is sufficient to back up just the one file called sources.list.
–
con-f-useAug 1 '12 at 13:32

Of course, just replacing your sources.list file with that text could be a very bad thing, especially if it looked quite different before. The key point is that each line starts with deb or deb-src (except for comments, which start with #).

@Malika Hello, I'm glad this fixed the problem. But please try to answer questions not only for the asker, but also for people who Google this question and have slight variations of the asker's problem. This probably needs a little more explanation to make it a good "general" answer. :)
–
JjedSep 1 '12 at 14:08

@JacobJohanEdwards I can't agree with you, because we really can't help those people who execute commands before reading the question, IMO
–
Anwar ShahSep 1 '12 at 16:20

1

@Anwar In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the answerer to (a) not answer in a way that only helps the original asker [that's too localized], (b) does not does not appropriately warn of the potential side effects of a command. A disclaimer helps.
–
JjedSep 1 '12 at 17:07

If you see no errors appear when you try step 4, the problem is hopefully fixed. You can exit the terminal and go back to Software Center/Update Manager and it should work.

If there is still a problem, you can restore the original file from the terminal with sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list.backup /etc/apt/sources.list. In that case, please paste the problematic lines or even the entire file to a pastebin and then we can help out further.

Deleting the offending line may not be a good idea (but kudos on the advice to back things up before doing this). What if it's a repository the user needs? Also, if a long line was somehow split into two lines, you will have two malformed lines (and the procedure has to be repeated). man sources.list has a section with examples and it may be useful to ask the user to compare his lines with the examples, maybe he can determine what's wrong and fix it himself. Personally I'd wait until he posts his sources.list file.
–
roadmrJun 18 '12 at 0:04

@roadmr: Thanks, I agree completely with all of the scenarios you posit. I just felt that newbies may not even know how to post a file, let alone specific lines from that file, unless advised how. That inspired me to write this self-QA-howto :-)
–
izxJun 18 '12 at 7:45

Please try to edit your sources.list file by dropping sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list in a terminal (your password may be asked), after which you will have the options to enable "Line Numbers" in the Menu Edit/Preferences of gEdit and clicking the "Display line numbers" checkbox, then manually go to the Line in your error e.g. 91 or by using "Search/Go to line" (Ctrl+I does the trick).

At the beginning of the Line 91 drop two # symbols (##) to comment on that line and this way remove it from the update process (you can also delete that line at your own risk, I suggest you a backup).

When you finish, save the file and close it down. Then open a terminal and run sudo apt-get update and see if the error still appears. If not, then try opening your update manager.

Somehow it seems that the text in the Line 91 of your sources.list file is corrupted or there is some kind of an error, which means that some software is unable to be installed/updated/upgraded.

By commenting/removing the erroneous line the software won't be installed (if not already) or won't be updated/upgraded if that's what you try. Of which I suggest you to check where is that line coming from (which software requires it) and do the proper modifications as required in order to everything run fine.